“Sir… Mr. Chance, finding you is a blessing beyond words. I feared I would never repay the kindness your father once showed me.” Excitement cracked in Maxwell’s voice like distant thunder.
Jared understood. Maxwell must also have been lifted by his father’s grace, another life woven into the Heavenly Dragon Hall’s legacy.
“First things first, get me out of here,” Jared urged. “I need to reach level eight at once. Celestial Palace may already be in danger.”
Maxwell leaned in, star-flecked eyes glinting like naked steel beneath torchlight.
“Mr. Chance,” he said, his voice the whisper of a thousand blades sliding free, “Level eight will swallow you whole in your present state. Allow me to pour an ancient legacy into you. Your strength will surge, and quickly.”
The offer struck Jared like a hammer. He bobbed his head so fast his hair whipped across his brow. “Then what are we waiting for? Do it, right now!”
***
At the very rim of level eight, before the towering gates of the Celestial Palace, silence pressed down like a thunderhead ready to burst.
No warrior so much as twitched. Breath itself felt like an affront while dread congealed in the air, thick enough to choke on.
Hidden beneath his jeweled helm, Enaricus’ eyes darted, schemes blooming like weeds through cracked stone.
“If I retreat today, I am a dead man,” he rasped. “Yet the Malevolent Path Hall will gain nothing either. Help me survive this ordeal, and Celestial Palace will flood your coffers with resources. Plunder any treasure inside the Celestial Palace, take your pick.”
Percival and Esorin traded a single glance, greed flashing like molten gold in their eyes.
Esorin narrowed his gaze. Retreat promised punishment and profitless disgrace; besides, the Malevolent Path Hall had already declared war on the Celestial Palace. Fear now seemed pointless when temptation tasted this sweet.
From the palace steps, Onneas’ voice sliced through the tension. “Mr. Guardian, strike him down now! His treachery blackens Celestial Palace’s name.”
Trembling with rage, Onneas nearly tore the very air apart. Enaricus had dared to hawk the palace’s sacred relics as though they were trinkets on a street cart.
“Shut up!” The Guardian glared at Onneas, then fixed the intruders with a glare that could weld iron. “Walk away, and I shall pretend none of this happened. Discipline for Enaricus is our affair, not yours!”
Esorin stepped forward, his ebony staff humming with dark promise. “And if we choose to shield him?”
“Then you die!” the Guardian began, his words grinding like stone.
A heartbeat later, heavenly force erupted from his armor. The ground quaked, banners flattened against poles, and every rib felt ready to splinter under the pressure.
“Don’t go too far!” Esorin roared. He flashed forward, a streak of shadow. His staff cracked the sky, flinging a lance of black demon light straight at the Guardian.
The Guardian’s face tightened. His longsword swept across his body, intercepting the beam. Impact rang like cathedral bells, driving him half a step backward.
*He attacked without warning, this is bad…*
Esorin blurred from shadow to shadow. Every flick of his staff rained ebony sparks that pitted marble like hailstones.
Silver sword arcs clashed with demon light, detonations rolling outward in deafening succession while the sky itself seemed to vibrate.
Minutes bled away, and the Guardian’s strokes slowed. His breathing rasped; the once-seamless wall of blade images frayed, gaps yawning like tears in old cloth.
Seizing the instant, Esorin gathered power into a colossal onyx hand that thundered downward. It struck the Guardian’s chest. He sailed backward like a broken comet and slammed into the flagstones with bone-shaking force.
He clawed at the ground, struggling to rise, only to feel agony blossom through cracked ribs and shattered pride.
A ripple of realization swept through the onlookers, Celestial Palace’s famed Guardian was all shine and no substance. Confidence bloomed inside Esorin. A smug grin carved itself across his gaunt face.
“Ha! All that bluster and you’re nothing but a good-for-nothing. The only thing you guard is your own empty threats!”
Esorin threw his head back and roared with laughter. The sound rolled across the plaza like iron chains dragged over stone, rattling every brittle nerve in the watchers’ chests.
